Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

Read that carefully:

the contacts happened during the Goat Rodeo when Russia was actively sabotaging Clinton and supporting the mango-hued shigibbon.

the contacts were with Russian intelligence officials – not with non-governmental entities.

it’s plural: members of the Trump Campaign.

I don’t think we’ve hit the bottom of this yet, and clearly the Intelligence Community doesn’t think so either, but they want to get this out into the public.